On 01/10/10 14:21, Simon Baxter wrote:
>> Is there a CI/CAM option with ATSC-QAM cards? Or are the cable network
> encryption mechanisms proprietary (needing PVR with HDMI to get into VDR)?
As Thomas said, ATSC OTA is always free, however, CableCo's encrypt some
of their channels.
I had to hack VDR to stop it from updating CAID as Comcast here put a
CAID on channels that actually were FTA. I also had to patch VDR to
allow stream type 0x80 to actually be 0x02, (Mpeg) as my PBS stations
were encoded with type 0x80, which meant VDR gave them a vpid of 0 and
thought they were radio channels.
From what I've read Comcast uses two levels of encryption, a basic one
for tier one channels (extended basic in marketing terms) then a more
comprehensive key encryption for their digital preferred channels.
I use a combination of two set top boxes, a PVR HD for HD channels and a
PVR500 for SD channels, and two Clear Qam adapters for locals.
The Clear Qam are very good quality MPEG 2 HD or SD streams with AC3
audio, the PVR500 is reasonable, but one my boxes has interference on
the svideo output.
The HD-PVR is really good, giving an H264 with AC-3 passthrough TS
stream. However, every now and then the cable box glitches and the
HD-PVR stops streaming. PVRInput isn't aware (yet - although Lars is
looking into it) that it's not sending anything to VDR. This is a
problem when recording as VDR restarts, if I'm doing concurrent
recordings then I lose bits of other recording during this time. As an
aside, AC-3 is passed through from the original ATSC-QAM stream, I had
to patch VDR again to stop checking for ATSC on Audio Type 0x81 or VDR
would ignore the audio dpid of the channel and set it to 0. This also
had to be done for the VNSI plugin in XBMC-PVR.
I really want to thank Lars for teaching me about TS streams..
--
Rob Davis